ACT II: The Reign of Jaehaerys I — Part 1: The Court and Its Loves (59 AC – 87 AC)
Before the chapter begins, let me take a moment to talk about the protagonist.
Mind you, he isn’t some seasoned sage or anything of the sort; he is practically an eternal adolescent.
He was born powerful and grew even stronger, yet outside of magical responsibilities and affairs, he lacks maturity and lives as if life were a game.
In the future—specifically in ’92 👀—he will undergo a major awakening and realize that, as we say here in Brazil, “life isn’t a strawberry.” The matter regarding the gods will be explained in greater detail later on.
Chapter 8: Diluted Magic (71–74 AC)
After the festivities of Prince Aemon’s wedding to Jocelyn Baratheon, the court’s routine at the Red Keep returned to its usual tracks, with only one notable change: the so-called tradition of publicly stripping the bride and groom before the bedding ceremony.
A naive observer might suppose that, after the small and pedagogical spectacle I provided by severing and regenerating the hand of that drunk lord, the Andal nobility would have understood the idiocy inherent in this barbarous custom.
The short answer is: no.
In fact, the vulgarity of the ritual seemed to intensify in subsequent weddings throughout the realm, with increasingly grotesque touching and jokes, almost as if the nobles were childishly trying to provoke me.
Which, between us, is monumental stupidity.
Why on earth would I care if those Andal lords prefer to allow their brides and daughters to be groped by a mob of drunks?
The absence of sorcery in Andal blood seems to come with an equivalent lack of intelligence.
Come to think of it, this is a truly fascinating sociological and arcane phenomenon.
The Andals are the only race on the entire planet completely devoid of magical sensitivity; they are perfectly mundane beings.
And this does not stem from mere genetic misfortune, but from something much simpler and structural: their religion repudiates magic in all its manifestations and, in response, the very magical fabric of the world rejects them.
The Faith of the Seven operates like a cancerous tissue on this continent.
*Planetos* is a world sustained, pulsing, and enlivened by arcane forces; without magic, life itself stagnates and withers.
Should the arcane element disappear entirely, the Andals would be the last to endure, only to perish shortly after upon the ashes of a dead land.
What concerns me most, however, is what I observe when looking at the children of the Targaryen dynasty: with every new generation produced under the roof of the Red Keep, the sorcery in the blood of the dragon is diluted at a frightening rate.
In the lineage ranging from Princess Daenerys down to little Alyssa, this degradation is still subtle, almost imperceptible.
However, in Maegelle and Vaegon—who are already carving out their future paths—the magical spark is considerably smaller than that of their younger siblings.
And the reasons are evident: whether the austere discipline of a septa or the cold logic of a maester of the Citadel, both paths demand the active rejection of the blood’s blessing, whether through religious dogma or an unyielding rationalism.
As for the two youngest daughters, Daella and Saera, their natural magical capacity is virtually nonexistent.
I had already issued this formal warning to Jaehaerys and Alysanne, but I was solemnly ignored, and I am not in the habit of repeating myself.
Bowing to regional customs and worshipping the gods of the Andals is killing the royal family’s genetic and arcane heritage, degree by degree, and they are incapable of perceiving the ongoing tragedy.
The only means to halt this stagnation and rekindle the heat in the blood is through the psychic and physical bond with a dragon—and, even then, that has ceased to be an absolute guarantee.
The years unfolded and the atmosphere in the castle remained tense.
The discord that had previously pitted Jaehaerys against the queen shifted to the king’s relationship with his eldest daughter.
Young Daenerys harbors not the slightest fear of her father’s figure and makes a point of publicly defying each of his diplomatic decisions.
When Lord Alaric Stark traveled to King’s Landing to discuss the terms of the betrothal between the princess and his heir, it was Daenerys herself who called him aside in private and convinced him to decline the proposal.
The girl is audacious, bold, and rises in my estimation by the day.
To be entirely honest, she would make an extraordinary sovereign queen, but Jaehaerys refuses to see this due to his fixation on Andal conventions.
In the realm of dragons, the princess’s situation is also complex.
She does not display the necessary affinity to claim Dreamfyre—which was brought to the Dragonpit in the capital after losing her former rider—while the other beasts have already established their bonds.
Alyssa conquered the swift Meleys, and Baelon spends his days in Dragonstone courting the veteran Vhagar.
The dragoness is stubborn and proud, but she already tolerates the lad’s presence and touch; it is only a matter of time before he finally rides her back.
Women, even the winged ones covered in scales, remain creatures impossible to fully decipher through conventional methods.
Daenerys is far too similar to Alysanne in her soul signature to manage to tame Dreamfyre.
This means she will likely only manage to claim Silverwing after the queen’s death—which, naturally, will be too late for her youthful ambitions.
Seeking support in this cold war against her father, the princess began seeking me out constantly, begging that Alysanne and I intervene on her behalf.
And I decided to play this game.
To strike a masterstroke against Jaehaerys’s authority before the court, Daenerys orchestrated a memorable performance: she publicly declared in the Throne Room that she had taken a solemn vow of chastity to the Faith of the Seven in gratitude for surviving the epidemic of The Shivers, promising to preserve her purity forever.
The most devout nobility and the septons of the capital went into delirium, treating the declaration as a divine act and nearly elevating the princess’s name to the status of a living saint. New chapters come out on novelping dot com first.
And that very night, Daenerys used the secret passages of the Red Keep to sneak into my chambers, where I fucked her until dawn upon my silk sheets.
Evidently, the late High Septon was not entirely wrong in his paranoid accusations.
After all, at least one of the Targaryen princesses I managed to make deeply despise the dogma of the Seven and return to the ancient traditions of Valyrian blood and flesh.
The gods of Valyria are weak, pushed to the margins of oblivion by the ruin of the Freehold, but they remain alive.
Gods do indeed exist in this world; however, with the exception of the Red God and his manifestations of fire and shadow, these entities care little for the routine of mortals or are simply prevented from directly interfering by the very will and force of the planet’s magic.
But that is a reflection for another time.
Yielding to Alysanne’s insistent pleas, I agreed to step into the court’s dynamics.
Before the king and the lords of the council, I officially took Princess Daenerys as my apprentice in the arcane arts.
The truth, of course, is that aside from the positions of the *Kamasutra* and the manipulation of certain bodily energies, I do not intend to teach her anything truly dangerous.
Unless, naturally, some authentic Valyrian magic tome surfaces that the Citadel failed to steal or burn over the centuries.
While political disputes heated up, the royal family continued to expand.
Jaehaerys was never a man to neglect his bedchamber duties, and in 71 AC Princess Viserra was born.
I examined the child during her first days of life, and my theory regarding arcane decline was confirmed once more: the density of bodily magic in the girl is dangerously low for someone of such pure Valyrian traits.
On the other hand, not all is decay.
In 74 AC came the birth of Princess Rhaenys, daughter of Prince Aemon and Jocelyn Baratheon.
The blood of House Baratheon is a potent, dominant magical lineage charged with ancient vigor.
After all, the line of the Durrandons, the ancient Storm Kings, carried traces of an extremely concentrated elemental arcane heritage.
Little Rhaenys was born endowed with an impressive presence and vital energy from her very first breath.
Which makes complete sense: in the future, she will become one of the most formidable riders in history, boasting a legendary and unbreakable bond with her dragoness.
For now, the facade of the royal family remains solid, but the cracks in the foundation are beginning to spread.
Jaehaerys, in his obsessive quest to distance himself from Maegor’s memory and surpass him through conciliation, acts increasingly like a cold ruler and less like the husband and father his family needs.
Walking beside him through the stone corridors toward the Small Council chamber, I decided to break the silence:
“— The weight of the years seems to have finally caught up with you, my friend.”
Jaehaerys paused for a moment, adjusting his velvet tunic and staring at me with a raised eyebrow:
“— What are you talking about, Arthos?
I am still at my physical and intellectual peak.”
“— I am not referring to your body or your hair, Jae,” I replied, keeping my tone calm and my arms folded inside the sleeves of my tunic.
“— I speak of your mind.
When I look at you lately, I have difficulty seeing the sharp-sighted young king I met in the North.
I see only the *Conciliator*…
a man who tries to reconcile everything with everyone and, in the process, reconciles absolutely nothing within his own home.”
Jaehaerys sighed, his face hardening as he resumed walking:
“— The crown of the Seven Kingdoms weighs heavier than any sword, Arthos.
I imagine it is a difficult concept to grasp for someone like you, who is allergic to responsibility and lives solely to satisfy his own whims.”
I let out a short, unresentful laugh:
“— I cannot deny that is one of my flaws.
But it is also the supreme privilege reserved for those who are truly strong.”
“— Maegor thought the exact same way,” the king noted, his voice icy.
“— And you remember perfectly well how he met his end.”
“— Maegor possessed only a giant dragon and a Valyrian steel sword at his hip, Jae.
Exactly like you,” I countered, my gray eyes locked on him.
“— When compared to the ignorant lords and peasants of this realm, that may seem like the pinnacle of strength.
But it is not true power.
“— And is that not the same thing?” Jaehaerys questioned, stopping once more.
“— You also mounted a colossal dragon, Arthos.
You know the strength of deterrence.”
“— The difference, my dear friend, is that I do not need The Cannibal to be feared or to exert my will upon this world.”
A heavy silence settled in the corridor.
Behind us, Ser Ryam Redwyne, sensing the shift in tone, placed his hand on the pommel of his sword and began drawing the blade from its sheath out of an instinct to protect the king.
Without even turning toward the Kingsguard knight, I merely focused my intention and channeled a fraction of my blood sorcery.
Ser Ryam froze instantly.
The steel blade remained stuck halfway out.
The knight’s eyes widened in pure dread as he realized his entire body was paralyzed, unable to move a single muscle or utter a sound, transformed into a living statue by the mere weight of my will.
I continued staring at Jaehaerys, who met my gaze without backing down, though his pupils dilated slightly:
“— A dragon is an excellent instrument of political deterrence, Jae.
But power…
true power resides in the individual.
If I wished to slit your throat and this knight’s right here, this very second, what could you do to stop me?”
The king maintained an erect posture, his voice firm despite the tension in the air:
“— I am the King of the Seven Kingdoms.
And I must make the necessary sacrifices to keep this domain unified and govern justly.”
“— And that is your fundamental mistake,” I declared, dispelling Ser Ryam’s paralysis with a blink; the knight fell to his knees, gasping desperately for air.
“— You do not need to sacrifice your own family or your dignity to govern well, Jaehaerys…
but you do so anyway because you allowed yourself to be seduced by Andal dogma.
Do you know what is worse than an ant pretending to be a dragon?”
Jaehaerys did not answer.
“— It is a dragon trying to mutilate its own wings to turn into an ant.”
I let the words echo off the stone walls of the corridor and resumed my stride:
“— Now come.
We have terribly irrelevant matters on the agenda, and the councillors will certainly make it seem as though the Long Night approaches if we do not decide the wool taxes before noon.”
I left Jaehaerys and a still-trembling Ser Ryam behind and crossed the doors of the Small Council chamber.
Inside, I found only Septon Barth reviewing a few parchments and young Baelon, now seventeen years old, acting as royal cupbearer while awaiting the start of the meeting.
I adjusted my tunic and looked at the lad with a smirk:
“— What’s the matter, boy?
Did Vhagar kick you out of Dragonstone’s courtyard again?”
Baelon raised his chin with stubborn pride, adjusting the wine pitcher on the table:
“— Don’t even think about it, Lord Vaelarys!
Vhagar is simply an extremely demanding lady.
Patience and respect are required with a beast of that size.
One must not rush things.”
I focused my arcane vision on the lad for a second.
Beneath his skin, I noticed a clear shift: the frequency of his blood sorcery and the intensity of his aura and vitality had increased significantly due to his persistence in contacting and confronting Visenya’s old dragoness.
I stepped closer and gave a firm, encouraging slap to the young prince’s shoulder:
“— Just keep going exactly like that, boy.
Maintain that posture and that willpower, and she won’t be able to resist your charms for much longer, oh great Spring Prince.”
Baelon smiled with confidence, his chest puffing out.
Seconds later, Jaehaerys crossed the door with a serious, unreadable expression, took his seat at the head of the table, and the usual tedious council meeting began.